Shop Talk (28 page)

Iris was sweating as she threw another armload of wood on the fire. “Talk, damn you.” Her dress was torn and sweat stained, and she wiped a sticky strand of hair from her face. A heavy fog had settled over the back yard, and Marvin was ghost-like in the kettle of steaming water.

“I’ll never talk.” Marvin shifted from foot to foot. The water was hot. Damn hot. But he’d never been broken, and the likes of Iris and Bo Hare weren’t going to break him now. “By this time there should be nothing left of your sister except a pair of smoking espadrilles.” He laughed. “What a legacy. A pair of ugly shoes.” He clicked his teeth against the pain.

“Lucille was never a fashion statement.” Iris hated the old man, but there was no reason to disagree with his assessment of Lucille’s clothes. Iris wiped her forehead on the gown.

Bo paused with a chunk of wood in his hand. He’d been contemplating the pleasure of bashing Marvin in the head with the small log, but the sound of car doors slamming distracted him. He could hear someone rattling the front door–pounding on it as if they meant to break it in.

“Je-sus,” Iris exploded. “What a time for a robbery.” She picked up the luger. “I’m going up there and I’m going to get whoever it is. When I nail them, we’re going to put them in the pot right along with this criminal. Hell, well save the taxpayers a fortune tonight.”

“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” Marvin gloated. “There’s not enough wood in the world to boil the truth out of me. I’ve met the best, the very best extortionists. To think that a duo of rednecks would take me on. You make me laugh. Ha!”

Iris turned the gun on him. She’d had enough of his gloating.

“Now, baby,” Bo said. “We have to think about Lucille.”

“Hit him once, Bo, just a tap on the skull to keep him quiet while we see who’s at the door.”

“Good idea.” Bo brought the firewood down with a crack. Marvin slumped into the water and Bo fished him out and leaned him over the pot. “He’s good for a little while. Let’s go.”

“Bo! Iris!”

Before Bo could turn around, Mona, Andromeda and a radically transformed Jazz rushed down the narrow alley beside the shop.

“Don’t kill him,” Mona called. “Not yet.”

“Where’s Lucille?” Bo felt a rush of relief. “Is she okay?”

“She and Driskell were picked up by the feds. Andromeda and I escaped, and Coco and Sonny are out in the woods near Saucier. We had to leave them.”

“Lucille is alive?” Iris couldn’t make the question sound totally relieved.

“She’s fine.” Mona walked over to Marvin. “He isn’t dead, is he?”

“Not yet,” Bo answered. He felt a true rage building now that he knew his sister was safe. “But to be honest with you, I don’t know how much longer he’s got. I’m feeling pretty much like killing him.”

“Jazz has something to tell you.” Mona picked up some wood and fed the fire. “Why don’t you go in the shop? I’ll watch over Marvin here.”

“I’d like to shower and change my clothes.” Iris rubbed her hands down the skirt of the dress.

Bo put his arm around his wife as they followed Jazz in through the back door. “It’s okay, baby. You were damn convincing earlier as a shy violet with a kamikaze kick.”

“Oh, Bo, baby.” Iris couldn’t help it. Bo’s praise made her eyes tear up.

“When will Lucille be home?” Bo asked as Jazz motioned them to the counter in the kitchen.

Jazz started a pot of coffee. “They want to run some tests on Lucille, Bo.” With the coffeemaker hissing and sputtering, Jazz took a seat at the counter. “It’s a long story, but I think I’ve got it all put together. Mona thinks it would make a great book. Maybe even a movie.” She took a breath and flipped her hair back over her shoulder in a gesture she’d seen Iris make. Without thinking, she reached across to Iris’ cigarettes, took one, and lit it with flair. “Well, we think you and Lucille were created with alien DNA. Only there’s some small discrepancy in the birthdays.” She blew out a gust of smoke.

“This is a joke, right?” Iris lit her own cigarette. Her look told Bo he was no alien.

“No joke. That’s why Marvin kept trying to kill Lucille, so he could get DNA. He was trying to blackmail the government.”

“Blackmail!” Iris leaned toward Jazz.

“Exactly. If folks around here found out what the U.S. military did to soldiers during World War II, there would be an explosion. Marvin figured this out, and he was trying to blackmail the government. That’s when a guy named Roger hired Driskell to keep on eye on you and Lucille. Roger knew Marvin would turn up here eventually, because the feds had told him they wouldn’t give him a cent without concrete DNA tests to prove the alien connection.”

Taking Iris’ cigarette from her hand, Bo held it a moment, watching the smoke curl. “You mean Driskell was sent to protect us?” He took a drag on the cigarette.

“Not actually protect. Just to watch. To report anything unusual. Roger is missing the last joint on all his fingers. Andromeda and I figured that he and Marvin had tied up somewhere else. There’s definitely a score to settle between them.”

“If someone chopped off my finger tips, it would make for a little bad blood.” Iris took the cigarette back from Bo. “You said you quit,” she warned him.

He ignored her and focused on what Jazz was saying. “Go on.”

“Driskell has been making reports, but other than the arrival of Peter Hare …” Jazz crossed herself, “Driskell had nothing to report. He never saw Marvin. I met Marvin, though, and I knew there was something not right, something to do with Horn Island. During the war, while your daddy was stationed out there, they conducted some tests that made a lot of servicemen very sick. Everyone thought it was poisonous gas, but it wasn’t. Actually, they found a spacecraft in the Gulf, and that’s what they brought to Horn Island.”

Jazz leaned forward and crushed her cigarette into the ashtray. “That’s what they were testing, and your father was one of the men they tested it on.”

“Daddy? Alien tests?” Bo swallowed. There always had been something … not right about Lucille. Happy had tried to tell him. But the heart attack had been so sudden—so totally without any warning or hint of illness. With his dying breath, Happy had choked out something about protecting Lucille, that she was different. Bo’s lips clamped into a tight line.

“Bo, baby, I told you Lucille was from outer space.” Iris took a last drag and stubbed out her cigarette. “Just think, it could be a lot worse. She could have some terrible, deadly disease. As it is, she’s healthy as a horse. Physically. Hell, she’s good for at least another sixty years.”

Bo picked up a fresh cigarette and lit it as he tried to digest everything Jazz was saying. He studied the librarian carefully. She obviously believed what she said. She was completely sincere. With her hair down and her awful earrings covered, she looked downright smart. But all of this about aliens … Bo didn’t want to believe it. After all, Lucille was his sister.

“This is a great theory, but do you have any proof?” Bo felt Iris reach under the counter and touch his thigh.

Jazz shook her head. “No proof about you or Lucille, but the feds took Lucille for testing. They’ll have an answer soon enough.”

“If we
can get it from them.” Bo had no faith they’d ever share the results. And if it were true … would they decide to kill Lucille? “Where did they take her?” he asked.

“The closest federal facility is the VA, just across the street.” Jazz turned as if she could see through the apartment wall and out past the plate glass windows of the shop. “They may be there now.”

Bo rose, waving Iris back down in her chair. “Take a bath. I’m going over to the VA and make sure Lucille’s rights are protected. I don’t like the idea that for the past two weeks someone has been trying to splatter her to bits for a little plug of her DNA, and now she’s in the hands of the men who may have experimented on my family.”

A long scream came from the backyard.

Jazz felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to rise, free of hairspray for the first time in years. “I think Mona may have gotten the answers we needed.”

The back door slammed open and Mona walked into the room. Her thigh-high boots clicked on the linoleum as she took long, powerful steps. “Everything we suspected is correct. The space ship was brought from the Gulf in 1943. There were three aliens on board, and one of them survived for two weeks. The ship and their remains were taken to Horn Island, where soldiers were injected with various components of the alien’s DNA. One year later all of the soldiers used in the experiment were sterile, except for Happy Hare, who produced two children. Lucille Hare was born on May 12, 1960. Bo Hare was born October 30, 1961.”

Bo and Iris rose simultaneously. “Lucille is the oldest?” They spoke together.

“That’s what Marvin says. Want anything else from him before I put the potatoes in?” Mona grinned.

“How did you do it?” Iris asked. “We cooked him until he was steamed through, and he wouldn’t tell us a thing.”

Mona lifted one shoulder and grinned. “I found a copy of Lucille’s story in my tool box. I started reading it aloud.”

“Forbidden Words.”
Jazz nodded. “That would break anyone.”

“He’s out there now, crying like a baby, begging me to shut up.” Mona nodded. “What are we going to do with him?”

“I don’t know whether to kiss him or push him under.” Iris was shaking her head. “All of these years, and
she’s
the older sibling. She’s the one who should have been taking care of us.”

“Hush now, baby,” Bo put his arm around Iris. “Age doesn’t change a thing where Lucille’s concerned.”

A loud rattling of the front door brought Bo up out of his seat. “Maybe it’s Lucille.” He hurried to the front of the shop without waiting for anyone else. “Lucille!”

Face pressed flat as a Pekinese, Lucille peered into the shop. Driskell was behind her, helping Andromeda support a rolled rug that thrashed and struggled.

Unlocking the door, Bo swung it open. “Lucille!” He grabbed his sister, breaking the suction of her lips on the glass where she’d been making a design.

“Look, Bo, my lips are as red and full as Driskell’s,” Lucille said. She smiled up at him. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Bo cast a look at the bundle that was tied tightly with ropes. A noise, half-curse, half moan, came from it. He motioned Driskell inside. “Well?”

“I don’t think this will hurt your feelings. Peter is dead.”

“Are you sure?” A whiff of diesel seemed to swirl into the doorway behind Driskell, and Bo knew that it was true. Peter Hare was dead. His hand went up in the air for Driskell to slap a high five. “How? I figured he was like a loggerhead, that he’d live to be a thousand.”

“Spontaneous combustion, helped along by a Nazi plot.”

Bo’s eyebrows rose. “Say what?” He kept his arm around Lucille, glad to feel the warm solidness of her as she breathed regularly and stared at Driskell with cow-like love.

“The best I can tell, Marvin Lovelace was in with some of the old Nazis. They were developing a plan to serve beer to all the rednecks. It was a specially brewed beer that would cause massive spontaneous combustion. It was a truly fiendish plot.”

“And what about the Nazis?” Bo thought back to what Lucille had said about the gate. Maybe she was right. Maybe there were things about the Hare history that he had deliberately closed his eyes to. Like alien DNA.

Lucille went to the door and waved. Melting out of the darkness came Dallas, a staggering Robert, Coco, and Sonny. They trooped into the shop and Bo locked the door.

Iris, Mona and Andromeda came out of the kitchen. Iris had changed from the ruined yellow dress into a lacy black tank-T, black leggings, heels, and a pair of dark glasses. Her dark hair hung wet down her back. “What do you think, Bo?”

Bo’s smile was puzzled. Now, with all of these people in the shop, wasn’t the time for fun and games, but he could not deny Iris.
“The Avengers,
1966-69, Emma Peel?”

Iris’ chuckle was low and sexy. “Not on your life, babe. It’s Iris Hare, 1998. I was telling Andromeda and Mona about what happened with Marvin. They think it would make a wonderful screenplay. Something like a made-for-television movie. You know, with the story focused around my character. How does
Feet of Death
strike you?” She lifted the dark glasses which looked remarkably like the Raybans Andromeda wore. “I think I could write it, Bo. And because the group meets up here, I can be an honorary member of WOMB.”

“Well, that’s just wonderful, baby.” Bo tried to keep his heart from sinking. This whole scenario reminded him of something he’d once seen on
The Twilight Zone.
Iris had become one of WOMB. It was a terrifying prospect. “What about Marvin?”

“I fished him out and tied him to a tree. He’s a little blanched but still alive,” Mona said.

Andromeda shrugged and put the bundled rug in a chair. With a thump it fell onto the floor and began thrashing in earnest.

“Angela! An-ge-la! You are dead meat. You are meat so dead the maggots won’t touch you. Girl, you are burger mush!”

“Who the hell is that?” Iris asked, shocked enough to take her glasses off as she moved toward the rolled up carpet that twitched on the cement floor.

“Oh, ignore her, it’s only mother,” Andromeda said. “I couldn’t decide what to do with her so I had to bring her along. She isn’t very happy about it.”

“You are going to suffer. You are going to beg me to end your miserable life. You are the spawn of Satan. Your father was a drunkard and a louse, and you’re worse.” The rug thrashed about so much everyone kept moving out of its way.

Mona nudged it delicately with her foot, a move that brought on a string of curses.

“Should we let her up?” Jazz asked. She’d heard plenty about Natalie Colson, but she’d never met the woman face to face. Since Natalie’s face was buried in the rug, Jazz didn’t think this episode counted as a formal introduction.

“Let me up you stupid bitch!”

“One look and she’ll turn you to stone,” Andromeda answered. “Why do you think I never take my sunglasses off?”

“What are you going to do with her?” Sonny’s question was unexpected.